Not a Secret
by cassielouwho
Summary: Inspired by CA;Ws trailer.


Notes: Blame the CA:WS trailer that recently came out. Which you should probably watch before reading. Work Text:

Jemma sighed against Ward's shoulder. "I have to get up."

"No, you don't." He said into her hair, his arm tightening around her waist.

"Ward." She sighed. Jemma didn't want to get up from his bed. It was too small for the both if them on the Bus and usually it both bothered them, but Jemma was perfectly fine with it's too small seize now. Truthfully, she'd be fine with the floor if it meant she could stay curled against Ward.

"You don't have to go." He persisted, his grip only tightening.

"Grant, I have to go." She didn't use his first name often. It was an unspoken rule for the both of them. The team didn't know, or at least that's what they hoped, and the use of their first names would only cause them to slip up.

"Jemma." He shot back, but his grip did loosen slightly. " How about this? I wish you didn't have to go."

"I know." She sighed closing her eyes. "I'd prefer to stay on the Bus too, but order are orders. And I actually have to get sleep. Plus, it'd be a bit awkward if someone else found me in here with you."

"Would that be so bad?" He asked.

Jemma frowned and tipped her head upward so her chin was resting on her shoulder and she could see his face clearly. "Do you really mean that? I know we both thought it'd be best to keep this between the both of us, but you were very stern about it too."

"I'm just not fond of the idea of not seeing you everyday."

"It won't be forever. This a once in a life time change, Ward. They want me to head research."

"On the helicarrier? Why not one of the research felicities?"

Jemma shrugged. "It's just where they have it set up. I'm not administration."

Ward sighed and moved to kiss her forehead. "I just don't like it. You don't even know what your researching."

"I'll find out." She moved so she was practically on top of him. Ward wrapped both of his arms around her now.

"I'm going to miss you."

"I know. I'll miss you too." Jemma said before kissing him one last time. "I really need to sleep." She sighed before rolling off of him.  
_

Jemma tapped her fingers against the metal table. She hated waiting when she didn't know what she was waiting for. It wasn't aided by being put in an empty room.

She wasn't sure who was going to come in and explain it all to her, but who ever she expected, it wasn't him.

"Director Fury." She breathed as she stopped her tapping and sat up straighter.

He crossed the room, placed a file in front, but remained standing.

Jemma reached for the file, waiting for the nod of approval she received from Fury.

"A serum?" She asked after briefly skimming the file.

"Simmons, I don't know what it is, I don't care what it is. Right now, all I care is that you find a cure for it."

"I- uh, I don't know if I can, sir."

"Then slow it down." He ordered. Director Fury took another step closer, he placed a vial of blood on the table. "We have just this one. Replicate or whatever, you have one jobs Simmons. It's why I picked you, I've seen your work and you have a strong back ground in this sort of thing. Slow it down."

"I don't know if I can, sir."

"Then find a way!"

Jemma flinched back.

He sighed. "I know this was last minute, but the world needs you right now. Shield needs you to do better."

"And what if the person in question finds out? How do you even have his blood?"

"We'll keep you protected." With that he left her alone with the file and vile of blood.

Grant waited till Skye and Fitz left conference room before facing Coulson. "Sir, can I have a word?"

Coulson nodded. "Office."

"What did you want to talk about? Is this about you and Simmons. You're not as secretive as you think you are."

Grant shook his head. "This is more to do with her than me, sir. I did some digging. What's Winter Solider?"

He watched as Coulson stiffened, he knew what it was obviously. Coulson was a higher level, and even if that wasn't enough, he was close with Fury himself.

"Ward, stop. You don't need to know what it is."

"Then why does Simmons?"

Coulson shook his head. "She doesn't know what it is, not exactly, not all of it. Trust me on this Ward, stay out of this."

"Fine, tell me one thing, though, what does she have to do it with it?"

"They want her running research on a possible anti-serum."  
_

Fury had said she'd be protected. Apparently that meant two body guards, constantly. Where ever she was they were with her too. Jemma had tried to be friendly, but they were worst than Ward when the had first met on the Bus.

She got used to them. At least as you used to them as one could get. Which wasn't very much at all. At least, Jemma had work to distract her with. And as the week went by, she was beginning to think that they were a waste of time. Their energy and time could be spent else where where it was needed the most.

Jemma frowned at the beaker whose liquid was shifted. "What the hell?" She muttered. It wasn't till the alarms sounded, that she understood what was happening.

"Ma'am." The usual silent agent wrapped a hand around her arm. "You need to go."

"But the others!" She protested.

"We have the scientist." he spoke into his comm. "Evacuating her now."

Jemma tried to pull against his grip, but now the both of them had her and were leading her away. The alarms were still blaring, piercing her ears. The helicarrier was still leaning too dangerously. It was manageable at first, but then it tipped just enough that she lost her balance and skidded across the floor into a wall.

On the plus side she was free of the body guards. But the everything was still on the wrong angle, and everything was a mess. The alarms were joined with groans and screaming.

Jemma could here moaning. It was close enough that Jemma could crawl along the odd angle. She didn't trust her feet to keep her balance.

"It's alright. Let me help you." She offered to the man who's moans she had followed. Jemma sighed as she looked around. His leg was trapped under a metal machine. Too heavy for her weak arms. And blood was trickling from his mouth. Internal bleeding. There weren't a lot of options. Her only hope was that medical was already trying to survey the damage and help who they could.

"Some one help!" She screamed, but it was lost in the chaos and confusion that the shifted, and still shifting, helicarrier brought.

Jemma grabbed the man's hand and held it her own. "Hey, what's your name?"

"Andrew." He grunted, wincing at the pain.

"Shhh, it's alright, Andrew. It's going to be alright." She pulled a hand away to brush away the hair that stuck to his forehead. "It's alright."

"Am... am I going to die?"

Jemma squeezed her eyes shut. It would be easiest and wisest to just lie to him. He was in enough pain. Yet, she couldn't bring herself to tell him no. "I don't know." Jemma answered instead. "I want to say no, Andrew. I wish I could say no, but I can't help you without medical. And they have their hands full." She said glancing around.

They must have been trapped. No one new had joined them down here, even if someone wasn't from medical they could help. Getting pressure off his leg would help, it would stop the build up of pressure in his muscle particullary. That would kill him before the internal bleeding, but with out any one to help, there wasn't much hope to go on.

Jemma dropped his hand completely, and moved so her back was pressed against the medal. She pushed against it with all she had. If the other two agents had been with her when she skidded, maybe it would have been enough to move it, but they were gone now that she needed them.

'S-Stop it." Andrew begged. "I'm dying...there's nothing you can do."

Jemma stopped. She moved to take his hands again. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright." He slurred, his chest rising and falling with the struggle of breathing. "Y-You didn't do...this...to me."

Jemma held his hands as he struggled to breathe. She held them till his chest stopped moving. With numb fingers, she closed his eyes. "I'm sorry, Andrew." Jemma whispered before crawling away. There were other people who needed her. She couldn't do anything but feel sorrow for a dead man.

She felt the helicarrier lurch, and her head slammed into something hard. Jemma blinked and struggled to find balance as it crashed into something. There was no chance of regaining balance, she couldn't do anything. But she could feel the impact roll across the helicarrier.

If there was any good to Jemma's absence, it was that Grant could finally catch up on his ever lasting lack of sleep. Though, now he had nothing to do and if he slept now, his internal clock would be off. Instead, he found himself in the lounge with one of his books that he hadn't been able to read yet. Maybe by the time she was back, he could check a few off his list.

He was the first to her the alert, but Coulson was there in an instant, and May had disappeared back to the cock-pit to change flight course.

"The helicarrier, sir?" Grant asked when the news finally came.

"Went down." He answered. "I don't know much else, but we're going to help in any way possible."

"Wait," Skye spoke up. "Isn't that where Simmons was assigned?"

"Yeah." Fitz sighed. "It was."

No one said the obvious. None of them could bare it.

Jemma had felt pain before, but not like this. She had never felt anything that caused screams like it did now.

She wanted it to stop. She wanted the pain to go away. It felt like her whole leg was on fire, but there wasn't anything to stop it. Jemma could only scream at the burning. Maybe fire would have been a kinder to feel. How much of it could she have actually felt if it burnt through her epidermal and dermal layers, through her sensory receptors?

A full thickness burn would've been kinder. Instead Jemma stared down at a compound, open, fracture of her left femur.

She didn't dare attempt to move, not with the fracture, not with the metal cocooning around her. Jemma screamed, because after all this, she had the right to do so. It was hard to judge how long she kept wailing, but eventually it ceased till she was just sobbing. Even when the tears refused to come, her eyes already cried dry.

Jemma wished she had refused the offer. Not to stay with Grant- she refused to let a guy stand in her way of achievements- but to have stayed with her team, the odd little family of misfits. The darkness played with her, threatening to drag her under, but it was never enough. She was still too awake. She could feel the pain. What else of her was hurt? It couldn't just be her leg, but it's pain demanded to be felt more than any other possible injuries.

When the darkness finally drowned everything out, she welcomed it with open arms.  
_

There's a make shift med unit set up by the time they arrive. Grant wastes no time in finding some one would could answer his questions.

"Simmons." Grant demanded when he found the first person who appeared to be able to answer him. "She's a scientist, was working research. Have you found her?"

"I don't know. We don't know half the people here because we couldn't find their badges."

Grant shook his head. Apparently he wasn't clear enough. "Brunette, 5'3, British."

"You'll have to look for yourself. Better yet, you could assist the rescue crews." The medic answered before moving away from Ward and to a patient who needed him more.

"Calm." Grant spun around to see May with her hands held up. "I'm going to assist those I can, you are going to help with things here."

Grant shook his head again. "I can do better helping people out then being here."

"Not like this. You'll do something reckless. I know you, Ward. Stay here, I'll keep any eye out of for her."

Grant sighed and watched her go. There was truth in her words even though he was reluctant to admit to it. He walked around the area, eyes searching for something familiar of the chemist. His heart beat rose, the same shade of hair.  
After side stepping a few injured, he found the hair, but not the scientist. Two shades too dark.

"Wait..." The woman croaked, stopping Grant in his tracks of walking away. "I'm scared." She went on. "Will you sit with me?"

Grant took one look around, she wasn't here. He didn't think of the other possibility as he sat next to the woman. Her eyes were the wrong shade of brown.

"Sorry. You don't really have to-"

"No." Grant cut her off. "It's alright. I'll sit with you. It's Ward. You?"

"Stevens, scientist. And...and your Ops from the poster. Don't you have better places to be?"

"And why would you say that?"

Stevens shrugged with a wince. "You remind of my husband. Always somewhere in the world fighting the bad guys. You have a husband, wife, girlfriend, or boyfriend? I don't judge."

"Girlfriend. Looks a bit like you." He admitted.

"Y-You must have thought I was her."

His mouth was dry as he nodded. "I did. She was in the helicarrier. Shouldn't have been." Grant glared at his hands. "I should have told her too stay. Should have begged. I should have done something." He added quietly.

"We all get second chances, one false alarm." Stevens said with a reassuring blood stained smile.

But she didn't know Simmons used her's up the moment she tipped back into the sky from the Bus.  
_

Two months later, they held a memorial service. A large collective one hosted by Shield for those who died that day. And Grant didn't want to be there one bit. There were too many people, too many tears and lamentations.

Though, he understands the importance of honoring those who have lost their lives for a cause. So he stands with the team, but they hadn't been a team since. Not with their own missing, not with the replacement. No one could replace those smiles that kept them all going at one point or another. Or her place at scrabble and her stupid insistence of using British spelled words no matter how many time he disagreed.

He left as soon as it was acceptable to leave. If he avoided the Bus any longer, the burden would fall on Fitz or Skye, they didn't need to do it. Coulson had offered, but Grant knew Jemma wouldn't have wanted him in her stuff.

Grant hadn't been on the Bus much since the helicarrier. When he asked for a reassignment to something less stressful- strangely enough training agents was less stressful- Coulson hadn't protested, but signed the forms and let him leave.

The Bus felt more like home than his apartment. He bit his lip at the memories. Some days he wish he hadn't given the forms to Coulson to be signed, but there were a small few in which he was glad of his decision. Though, they were small and rare. Her door slid open easily, no one had touched it since. Not in the way of someone going though the stuff, but the bed was slept on. Skye of Fitz had slept in here.

He dropped the boxes at his feet. Grant tried to keep his thoughts empty as he packed away her things. It wasn't easy. The hospital room, the dreaded room, kept creeping into his thoughts unwanted. The beeping, her screams- Grant shut his eyes and struggled for his breath.

It wasn't fair.

Grant packed her things quickly as he could. He was gone before the team was back.

He fumbled with his keys and once through the door he set the boxes down on the small round table, seldom used. Grant would deal with them later.

Carefully, he pushed the door open to his bedroom. The chair was pulled up to the window.

"Do you want to get up today?" He asked gently, but it was hard to keep the frustrated tone out of his voice. Grant grit his teeth instead. He wasn't supposed to get angry at her, but it was infuriating. His patience only went so far. "You have to get up."

"No." She answered. The cheerfulness that usually accompanied her voice was gone, though, it had been gone since it happened. Since she had protested against the doctors.

"Jemma."  
_

'Stop it." Jemma hissed. She refused to turn in her seat and look at him, but he was silent. And he used her first name, there was only so much she could do to ignore him. Ignoring him in the beginning was easier, and maybe it felt a little satisfactory. Not because she wanted to hurt him, but because ignoring him was the one thing she had control over. Though, she had hurt him from doing so.

"No. I'm not. Not till you get up and do something. You can't just sit around here and do nothing. I won't allow it."

Jemma turned in her seat so that he could see her clearly; the bandage that now only covered the incision instead of the majority of what was left of her left leg. "I can't do anything. Not any more."

Grant shook his head. "Jemma, yes you can. You so are caught up in the fact that you're missing a limb that you refuse to a damn thing. There a prosthetic and wheel chairs, you could get up and at least do something. But you won't, you don't leave the apartment unless I take you to an appointment. What would you even do if I wasn't here?"

Jemma shrugged her shoulders.

"Just get up, please. Just for day. You need to get out of the apartment. Just one day, please."

She sighed, he was begging with his eyes and words now. He was set in getting her up and out. But she still shook her head. Jemma went back to staring out the window and watching the cars go by. Those people had places to go and be. It felt like she had none.  
_

Jemma hadn't wanted the amputation, had argued against it, but it was her leg or her life. Grant hated to see her like this. Just one day out of the apartment would be good for her.

He took a few steps closer, waited to see if she kept her silence, and continued till he was standing in front of the window, in front of her. Grant had to bend his knees to be closer to her height in the chair and to be able to take her hands in his. She didn't pull away.

"I know you didn't want this. And I'm sorry this happened, but this has to stop. You have to get up and show an interest in the world again. You barely smile, I miss that." Grant took a breath as he thought of what else to say. "I know you miss the Bus. I miss them too."

There was a hint of smile at his words, but as soon as he noticed it disappeared.

"This is me trying to catch you." He explained. "This wasn't fair to you, not at all, but sitting here everyday won't fix things. I left the Bus so I could help take care of you. Fitz and Skye, they wanted to help too. We're all here for you. And we can go back to the Bus. That's always been an option. But you can't do that till you get better."

He waited for her to say something. Grant was beginning to think his words had been wasted before she spoke up.

"Fine." She sighed. "You'll have to help me up of course. And can we get something to eat first? I'm hungry. And I'm not facing the world on an empty stomach."

There was a hint of a smile on her lips, one that suggested it could come back. That she could be the biochemist who always smiled again. And her eyes were bright again.


End file.
